1. Sunday night: This was our second night at training camp and we were asked to have at least 3 people on the front porch praying for the week of camp and for our squad for the entire night. I knew I would be able to fall back to sleep so I volunteered for a middle of the night shift. We definitely had it easier than the other squads. Our camping spot was just across the road. My group relieved the guys and decided to make our prayer a conversation with each other and with God. Isn’t that what prayer is supposed to be anyway? We gave shortened versions of our testimonies and prayed over each other and the camp. The hour was over before we realized it and the next group was there to send us back to bed.
2. Monday afternoon-Tuesday morning: (This is going to be the longest story of the 5 so be prepared.) So Monday morning we were told to pack for an overnight trip. So sometime between exercising and breakfast (there was no time between them really so we all just got up super early), we packed up all of our stuff. Most of us chose to pack it all in our smaller daypacks and several people chose to share tents so they wouldn’t have to carry as much. We found out after lunch we also needed to carry up our dinner and wood for a fire and extra water. It was decided that we would each carry 2 extra water bottles and anyone that could would carry wood or food. Knowing I was going to be slow even without a pack (I had my small pack) I didn’t volunteer to carry wood or food.
We took off in 3 vans and made our way to Yonah Mountain trailhead. I overheard someone say it would take us about an hour and a half to reach the summit. I went ahead and made sure I was towards the back of the group. Katie tried to stick with me but she along with a lot of the other people thought that this was our fitness hike as described on the World Race website and that meant they only had 45 minutes to complete it. Because of that miscommunication, myself and a couple other girls ( Brittany and Talaya) were quickly left in the dust. Sarah had been one of 3 people from our squad that was put in charge of this trip and she had volunteered to take up the rear. So with Sarah as a second pair of eyes, I slowly found the least treacherous path and made my way up the 1,500ft mountain trail. Karen (one of our squad coaches) was also near the back and carried on conversations with us all which made time pass faster. Between her conversations and Sarah’s encouragement, I never once considered the thought that I wouldn’t make it to the top. Even if Sarah started saying we were almost there before we hit the halfway point. 😉
After some time Keith (Karen’s husband) came back down the trail and joined us. He had not made it to the top and I’m not entirely sure why he left the other group except maybe to come check on Karen and the rest of us. Then we came to a fork in the path. Both paths lead uphill but one clearly lead to the mountain to our left and the other the mountain on our right. We could hear no other groups anywhere around us so we stopped. We called ahead to another group that we assumed had reached the summit by this point and had them holler down to us in hopes that we could get our bearings and follow the correct path.
They sounded so close! We just knew we were near the top. We took the path to the left. We repeated this a couple of times at different forks in the path and every time they sounded like they were just above us. Then we caught up. Turns out the group we had been calling was not at the summit and none of us knew how much further it was to the top. “almost there” was thrown out a lot on that hike even though none of us really had a clue.
At this point the path got steeper and much more rocky. It looked like a riverbed, if a riverbed had no water and was really steep. A couple of times I had to take my pack off and hand my trekking poles over to someone in order to climb up to the next section.
Eventually we made it through that section and onto a gravel road which according to the text Connor had sent us (he was the only person with us that had hiked the trail before) we were on the final stretch and it included a bathroom. Sarah had been carrying the toilet paper for our night on the mountain so I don’t even want to think about what everyone else used when they got this point in the trail.
While we took turns in the bathroom I finally got a well needed break. I looked around at everything around us. It was beautiful. There were trees with pink and yellow blooms and water dripped off of some of the branches and clung to others making them sparkle in the late afternoon light. I volunteered to hang back and wait for the last of the people in the bathroom along with Keith and so Karen and Sarah moved on up the mountain with a group of girls that were done with their break and ready to move on. Our group consisted of Jack, Keith, Brittany, and Talaya. Knowing we were so close to the end, the girls pushed ahead and caught up to the group that had left just minutes before.
As much as I liked not having to worry about twisting my ankle while walking on the gravel I really wanted to get back on a trail. As steep as it was, the gravel felt like cheating to me. Up and around a corner and we found Connor waiting for the three of us to show us the fastest path up to the top. Keith kept up a constant steam of questions that brought forth many stories from me as he walked in front of me on the narrow trail. Jack was close behind. Catching me the one time I lost my balance on a root and almost tumbled backward down the trail. I think I prefer his silent companionship mixed with conversations more than the constant cheerleader type that constantly reminds you that you can do it. I know I can do it and I will do it. There’s no need to tell me again and again. Just something I learned about myself.
The trail flattened out but we weren’t there yet. I could hear everyone above us while I paused to catch my breath. My calves ached and my ankle had long since locked up. Connor posed the question “Would you rather walk this trail around to the far side where there is a fairly easy path up to the top or can we take this smaller steeper trail?” Knowing everyone was waiting on me to start the next thing aka supper, I chose the small steep path. Yeah…it turned out not to really be a path halfway up. The grass was up to our knees and our legs were being splattered with mud. My ankle locked up for good and I thought my left calf might explode so rather than hurt myself I finally admitted I needed help and handed off my pack. A less stubborn me would have handed it off a while back. It wasn’t two minutes later that we walked out of the grass and trees and into a perfectly circular clearing to much cheering. Exhausted, I found a spot and pitched my tent as quickly as I could. Food was already being passed around.
The evening went by all too quickly. Keith and Karen gave us some food for thought with a lesson on identity (see the photo at the bottom of my comments and thoughts on sessions post). Then they headed back down the mountain hoping to make it to the bottom before it got too dark. Meanwhile we moved back down the mountain a short ways ourselves to take a group picture and have worship on an outlook. Jacob led us since he brought his guitar with him. After we decided it got too windy we headed back to our camp to start the fire and worshiped some more. Then we opened the floor to any one that wanted to talk about their identity or anything else.
With a big gust of wind across our clearing, it started pouring. Now, I had seen the storm off in the distance and headed our way but I underestimated how quickly it was traveling and so hadn’t mentioned it to anyone but simply watched the lightning streak across the sky way out on the horizon. I could have stood there and watched it for another hour but Jack was waiting for me to go back up the steep incline ahead of him so I forced myself to look away. How nice of him to wait for me. If I had been last and fallen who would have looked back and realized?
What happened in and after the rain is a story for later but needless to say it was a long night.
The trip up the mountain humbled me. Once I made it to the summit I was mad at myself for having depended on someone else instead of finishing the hike myself and terrified that when we did our actual fitness hike I would fail miserably because my ankle would still be locked up from this venture. I was also a bit worried about the trip back down in the morning because that was some steep terrain to traverse on very sore legs.
The morning saw us in a cloud of mist that dissipated just as we were ready to start heading down. Again I hung to the back of the group. This time Sarah was leading the group down and Jacob was in the back with me and Brittany and Talaya. He didn’t know what he was in for. Going down was definitely faster since gravity was working in my favor but there seemed to be more rocks that I couldn’t just step down from than I remembered on the way up. Jacob was often handed my stuff so I could find a way down with less chances of falling off balance and many many times I used him as a railing or a wall to stop myself. I’m not sure how long or how often the main group took breaks but we never seemed too far behind them. At one point Connor, who was with the main group, showed a much quicker path down. A path we had not seen or taken on our way up and might explain how we got so far behind. The shortcut took a good quarter mile off the hike.
Once at the bottom we all ate our breakfast as we loaded ourselves into the vans, trying to make it back to training camp before the session started. Don’t worry we made it. The other two groups didn’t though when it was there turn to hike the mountain.
I really want to hike that trail again after our journey is over and see if I feel any better about it. Maybe I’ll get the chance. Oh! One more thing. They used that hike as our fitness hike so there was no reason for me to stress over a timed hike that wasn’t coming!
3. Tuesday night: We got so busy during the day that none of us had time to set up our tents after our mountain hike. We got lucky. Our scenario for the night was how to handle things when your host gave you one room to sleep in and you had a coed team. We were assigned to sleep in the training center. That meant air conditioning! The thought of sleeping in the same room as the 5 guys on our squad didn’t even phase me. Should it have? Strangers I may have questioned but these guys were already like brothers, or at least like cousins to me. I showered that evening so I missed hearing if it bothered anyone else. We created a makeshift changing room and the girls took turns changing behind it and then the guys. We left a gap in the room between the genders so there was a clearly defined guy space and girl space. After that it was like a giant slumber party with 28 of your closest friends. I will say the guys definitely giggled more through the night than the girls. Knowing that I snore and that I’m a night owl I wrote in my journal in order to keep myself awake until the majority went to sleep so as to give them a fighting chance. It was one of the best nights of sleep that week, for most of us anyway.
4. Wednesday night: Before breakfast we had to have all of our stuff packed up as if we were going to the airport. Having watched so many vlogs before coming to training camp I knew what scenario was coming and packed accordingly. After lunch we all lined up as if we were going through TSA. Cami directed us to either Kylee or Connor for “bag checks”. I was sent to Kylee. She checked my passport and asked where I was going. Since it’s the area I’m most looking forward to I said Thailand. She then took my big pack and threw it on a pile behind her. Connor had a similar pile going. I didn’t bother guessing which pile was going to get “lost” in transit. I was prepared.
It was announced that anyone that had gone through Connor’s line had taken Spirit airlines which no sane person would ever do anyway and all of their luggage was lost. I got my pack back and was partnered with Allison for the night. There was an even number of girls and exactly half of them lost their stuff so it worked out perfectly. The guys on the other hand only got 2 tents back and there were 5 of them.
Allison and I very quickly set up my tent and then I asked her what overnight stuff she had packed. The answer was clothes. No sleeping bag, no pillow, no nothing. I smiled at her and started divvying up my stuff. Sleeping pad for me, sleeping bag for her, neck pillow for me, two large camping pillows for her, sarong to use as a blanket for me, sleeping bag liner for her. Some of the other girls got awfully cozy that night with one blanket and one pillow between them both. Not to mention it was hot and humid all day and all night for the entire week, usually with a short but heavy rainfall sometime during the day.
One of the guys had a hammock packed so one of them chose to sleep in that for the night while the others doubled up. They chose to set up their tents on the upper level of our camping area while most of the girls went down to the lower section. I would have gone down there too but a couple of girls set their tent up in the top section before the guys had and obviously didn’t want to move it so allison and I chose to camp up there. The flood light was visible through the trees all night and I understood why everyone else chose to sleep at the bottom. On the plus side, there were a lot less spiders to deal with in the morning.
5. Friday night: Friday we had a very different schedule. We were divided up boys in one room and girls in another. We had separate lessons and separate panels to ask questions to. After a short break we switched panels. Those 3 male coaches had some tough questions to answer in front of a whole lot of girls.
We stayed split up for the rest of the day excluding meals. Our “scenario” for the night was just a girls night. We watched a movie about an all women rowing team that rowed across the Pacific Ocean while we ate popcorn and put on face masks.
Quick story: It was India day so I was wearing a skirt. I was also wearing my spinner ring. We had dish duty for lunch and I found myself at the scrubbing station. I really didn’t want chicken masala stuck in my ring but I didn’t have a pocket to put it in. Colton is walking by wearing jeans so I call out and ask him to hold on to it for me. After we finished dishes we both forgot and went about our day. It’s now 30 minutes or so into the movie and Jessie sitting next to me says there’s a message for me on the group chat from Colton. He’s waiting with my ring outside the training center. I am on the far side of the room. Not knowing how long ago he sent the message I moved quickly to the doors and outside only to find out he had just handed it off to someone named Amy. I didn’t know anyone named Amy. As I walk back inside I recalled someone on staff named Amy and sure enough I found her sitting in the back of the room. I mention my ring and find she had just passed it off to “someone from K squad”. K squad is my squad so I figured it would make it’s way back to me at some point and even if it didn’t I wasn’t overly concerned. It wouldn’t be the first ring I had lost. I was almost back to my spot when someone whispers my name. I turn and there’s Sarah holding my ring out to me. As she handed it to me someone else tells me Colton is waiting for me outside and to stop people from telling me that I hopped on the chat and thanked him for my ring. He had been so worried about me losing the ring, even after I reminded him that one should never bring something on a long trip that they aren’t willing to lose. Glad to have it back anyway.
While we were inside in the air conditioning with our face masks the guys made a fire and had smores before going to sleep in their tents. Us girls most certainly got the better end of the stick that night.
Saturday night saw people doubled up in tents again because they didn’t want to take the time to set theirs up for only one night. Others slept on the front porch where we had done our prayer vigil. No scenario that night, just a good night’s sleep before packing up to go home.
It kind of does…but what would the moral be?
When the choices are optimism or bitterness I choose optimism! I was bitter for far too long in the past. I refuse to make that mistake again.
I’m so glad I hiked Yonah with you. I got to hear your story, but mostly I got to witness your determination and optimism.
Can’t wait to see you soon in Guat!!
Again, I love how you notice the little things, the details, and how you can see God at work in each of them, as well in your brothers and sisters. I especially love the story of the ring in this blog (sounded like a parable to me!).
Hmm. Good question. Some of the parables that Jesus told revealed what His kingdom is like. So…the ring in your story could represent God’s persistence with us—His love always finds a way to our hearts. Thoughts?